A few questions about rigging in 3dsmax

[LFShade]

1. Regarding fins. You don't really need to make sure they are oriented in any particular way, it's just a convenience. I try to keep them sensibly aligned in my rigs, because the orientation of the fins relates to which way the bone axes are pointing. Keeping bone orientations uniform makes things easier when you need to edit animation at the function curve level, since you'll generally know which curve relates to which direction a joint is bending in.

2. I believe the mirror tool in R5 is now "smart enough" to know when it is mirroring bones, and behaves the same as when the "mirror bones" option is ticked in R4.

3. There is nothing special about the extra bone nub at the end of a chain. It's just a normal bone that is added automatically to aid in assigning IK. Feel free to delete it if it's not needed; you can always add one back from the Bone Tools dialog on the Character menu:)

Good luck in your continued rigging!

RH

[Count0]

Thanks for the helpful answers! :thumbsup:

One thing though, When I rotate the bones to get the front fin pointing forward etc., are there any troubles to avoid? I've read that you must rotate the bones in local mode to get it corect, is this true also in max 5? And if I rotate a bone in a chain will this affect the other bones (even if I use "Don't affect children" in hierarchy menu) ?

[LFShade]

It's actually best to try and create the bones in the orientation you want them in. But you can use Bone Edit Mode to correct them after creation without affecting child bones.

RH

[E.T]

This tutorial helped me a lot: (had a lot of problems, later on i suddenly understood it was the mesh all along:surprised )

http://www.kicrea.com/articles/index_us.php3

Some other good tuts there too.

[FatAssasin]

Another note about the fins... The size is very important because both Skin and Physique use the size of the fins to determine the initial size of the skinning envelopes. So you want the fins to match the model as closely as possible. It cuts down on the amount of time you have to spend messing with the envelopes after you apply the Skin or Physique modifier.

I also have some rigging tutorials on my site which I'm adding to all the time...
http://www.jhaywood.com/croiProject.htm

[thorn3d]

Do not use the mirror tool on bones if you think you'll ever have any inclination of using Human IK or Motionbuilder with that rig. Mirroring scales the bones in a negative fashion, and although max will accept this the other plugins/programs will not. Futher, you may have problems if you export things to a game engine.

It's quick and easy to mirror, but you're potentially giving yourself a headache in the future.

thorn

[Dominique]

Theres a script out MirrorBones (see scriptspot) and learn Bio-Skin, another script, thanx to all scripters

Dom

[EricChadwick]

As neverwake pointed out, Discreet broke the mirror bones function of the Mirror tool. Did not negative-scale bones in max4, but it does unfortunately in max5.

Herman Saksono is the Mirror Bones script author...
http://maxres.cgworks.com/scripts/

[Count0]

Ok, so if I use this script mirroring should work out fine?
Thanks for the answers btw ;)

[EricChadwick]

Yes, it works, for the most part. It does fail in some cases though... keep an eye on your transforms.

[Count0]

Ok, moving on, I'm having some problems attaching the legs and arm to the spine bone. In the tutorial mentioned above he uses what he calls nubs or terminators to define for example the point where the arm connects the hand, where the arm connects to the spine etc. I'm not sure if this is because he uses IK for spine, arms and legs but for fingers he use direct kinematics. Anyway, could I just connect the arm root bone to the top spine bone directly?

[Count0]

Hmm, I tested the plugin but it didn't work correctly at all. First of all, I had rotated some of the bones in local mode, but when the object was mirrored it didn't transfer these settings to the copy it seems like. Also some of my bones seems to have been strecthed out (not caused by Mirror Bones, but when I created them) I don't really know why, but it affected the shape of the fins I think. But same as before these settings weren't transferd to the mirrored copy. Might be so that the new copies acctually are more "correct" than the originals, anyone got any good soloutions?

EDIT: about the misshapen bones/fins, as i said they're stretched out. That is, normal bones usually looks like two pyramids connected to eatchothers bases (if you get what I mean), where one of them usually keeps it's original size at all times, while the longer one changes as you edit the lenght. This is not the case for me, both of them change. Also the fins on those bones are "comprimised" to the middle of the bone instead of being of the same lenght as it. I would appreciate if someone could tell me if this could cause problems or if it's just a graphical thing.

:)

[thorn3d]

Did you use the Scale tool to adjust the size of your bones? If so... that's a bad thing, and may be while the appearance of the bones looks wrong. They will behave badly as well so it's not just a display thing.

thorn

[Count0]

Nope didn't use scale, I opened hierarchy options, checked "does not affect children", and then moved the bones to change the lenght. Could it be so that "edit bones" (under character -> bone tools) would work better? But I'm pretty sure that the first method worked fine before :shrug:

[Count0]

Btw, I noticed that there is an option called realign in bone tool, could it be a good idea to use this on all bones before I mirror them? Also there is a reset stretch option, so that one is solved. Still the new mirrored copies get their rotating values reset (I think it's something like that), it would be easier if I could set the rotating values on the original bones to be default, so they don't get reset.

[thorn3d]

Originally posted by Count0
Still the new mirrored copies get their rotating values reset (I think it's something like that).

I have no idea what you're meaning by that... reset to what, exactly? What is mirrored? Arms, legs, both? How did you mirror it? Does it look right? Behave incorrectly? Is IK involved or are you using FK? Or... what do you mean?

Keep in mind we aren't sitting over your shoulder as you work, so try and be specific in your question, as well as WHY the answer is important to you... otherwise at times we're just shooting in the dark.


thorn

[Count0]

Sorry, but if you read the posts on the first page I think you would understand. :shrug: But I'll take it again from the beginning then.

I make a chain of bones for the arm etc. have to change the lenght of the bones by moving them (using "don't affect children") and to get the bones facing correctly I rotate them somewhat in local mode. Then when I mirror the bones; in max 5 without plugins everything looks fine (but beacuse of the negative values that someone mentioned this isn't a good option). So I try to mirror the bones with Mirror Bones plugin. Problem is that the mirrored copy doens't look like the original at all. Seems to me like all settings (read stretch and rotate) are reset in some way, for example some of the bones were stretched out, but when mirrored in MirrorBones the strecthing is reset (which is also an option in Bone Tools). However, those bones I rotated also get reset on the mirror, so they'll be just as the original was before I rotated it. I guess I could just mirror them and manually correct this on the mirrored copy, though now I wonder if this might be a good idea at all as rotating seems to mess up the bones... Is "local-mode" really the correct way to rotate a bone?

What I was trying to say in the last post, could there be an option to make the rotating of the original bones to be set as defult, so that it doesn't matter if it's reset.
Also what does "realign" do (in Bone Tools menu)? I Read the help files but I couldn't figure out if it would help me here. Anyway, what I'm wondering most now is if it's possible to rotate a single bone in a chain without getting those troubles.

Thanks in advice :)

[thorn3d]

Can you post a file of the rig, before you are mirroring things?

thorn

[thorn3d]

Followup part 2: have you read, completed, and understood the rigging tutorial that came with max5? The reason I ask is this: it's pretty comprehensive and step-by-step. Although it uses the (evil) negative scaling to mirror, for the purposes of the tutorial this is no problem at all. If you've already got that tutorial mastered, then of course it's fine to advance onto other instructions. (ala Joan of Arc)

FWIW, i *do* use the max5 mirror at the moment... I just realize that I'll have to stay completely with max to animate without going into MotionBuilder. It's kind of a lesser-of-evils thing; I didn't have great luck with the Mirror Bones script either - it definetely screwed up the rotations in the copy.

thorn

[Count0]

Thanks for your answers :) While waiting to see if someone else knows more about rotating bones (see my last post), I'll ask another one.
After reading some tutorials I've seen that some attach their legs and arms to the spine/hips, while others don't. What is the effect of this? Does it matter at all? I'll be using IK (HI) for both spin, legs and arms. So even if I don't attach the arms will they still follow if I bend the upper spine forward?

Thanks.

[Count0]

bump :wise: :rolleyes:

[Count0]

Ok, I started following the 3dsmax rigging tutorial (that comes with the package) but at the end of the "rigging the leg"-tutorial I ran into some porblems. It's the part where you should add a "swivel" (sp?) to make the knee always point it a certain direction (so it bends right). But look at this picture. The left shows how it's meant to be, and the right what happens when I check the marked box. I have no idea why this happens, cause I'm sure i followed every step carefully. Could it be caused by rotating the bones (always used local mode for that)?
http://medlem.spray.se/wintermute/3d_help/rig_help01.jpg

And another one. The character that is used in the tutorial has his feet lined up with the x-axis of the grid (in side view that is, in perspective view the same is called y-axis, don't know why), but my character's feet is pointing outwards. So those helpers are set to rotate on the x-axis which might not work that good with my character, or what do you think? Any suggestion how to fix this? Also the helpers and IK solvers aren't pointing in the same direction as the feet either (as they are lined up to the grid), though I guess it wouldn't be enough to just rotate them. Suggestions very much appreciated :)
http://medlem.spray.se/wintermute/3d_help/rig_help02.jpg

[Count0]

Bump* Any ideas? Is my description of the problem detailed enough or is more info needed?

[thorn3d]

The left shows how it's meant to be, and the right what happens when I check the marked box. I have no idea why this happens, cause I'm sure i followed every step carefully.

I believe the tutorial had a typo, later corrected by the author. Try using IK Goal space instead of Start Joint for the ankle (look at the screenshot you posted...)

Could it be caused by rotating the bones (always used local mode for that)?

Whether you rotate in local, gimbal, world, or parent is irrelent in the scope of your question. The mode you use is all determined by what's easiest to visualize and make use of; it has NO impact on how the rig behaves.

thorn

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